Why move to the cloud?

Making the move to the cloud should naturally be prefaced with consideration of the benefits weighed realistically against the costs and risks involved. Whereas some of the benefits appear to be immediately obvious e.g. reduced capital expenditure, there are other key advantages which can be overlooked.

The main factors for consideration are:

CT4 provide enterprise class cloud solutions

We can help you understand and minimise both the costs and risks as you embark on your cloud adoption project.

Resources Consolidation

The modern business world has become so used to new technology that genuinely progressive concepts are often left unrecognised by large sections of the business community. Virtualisation is a good example of this, with the technology being around for a decade before its benefits really became understood and appreciated.
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We are now on the cusp of a significant evolution in information technology, one which has the potential to completely change how organisational IT is provisioned, managed and protected.
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Decision makers are often left wondering if they have provisioned the optimal level of IT resources for their business requirements. Purchasing too much infrastructure leads to under-utilisation, excessive redundancy and over-capitalisation; whereas provisioning too little hardware can lead to an underperforming system that is not quickly or easily scaled out.

Cloud environments use virtualisation technology to consolidate resources that would otherwise be residing on individual physical machines (traditional hosting model). In straightforward terms, it allows us to segregate a physical device into several virtual machines, meaning that you can control the level of redundancy in the system.

If you experience growth and need to expand your resource pool, it simply becomes a matter of slotting in a new drive, creating additional virtual resources and copying data across to them. With the right level of expertise, the whole process is achieved in a matter of hours rather than days or weeks.

Virtualisation technology is not restricted to servers only; virtual appliances can be used for other key resource areas such load balancing and security infrastructure. The engineers at CT4 have all the technical expertise required to design, build, operate and manage your IT in the cloud environment.

Cloud technology allows you to think differently about how you purchase your IT.

Resilience
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A significant advantage of cloud computing is that, by its nature, it removes multiple single points of failure from the system. The failure of one node of the system has no impact on information availability and does not result in perceivable system downtime. Cloud technology provides a highly resilient computing environment.
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The obvious weak point is the network itself. If that fails then cloud computing also fails until a connection can be re-established. We pay particular attention to network topology and ensure that redundancy is built into the entire network to mitigate the risk of a failure.
​​OPEX Vs. CAPEX

One of the many tangible benefits of cloud adoption is the conversion of unpredictable capital expenditure (CAPEX) to a steady state operational expenditure (OPEX). This allows you to precisely monitor, predict and control how much you spend on your IT.
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If the scale of the infrastructure dictates the implementation of a Greenfield Private Cloud there is no escaping the initial capital cost of equipment provisioning. However, because the management and maintenance overheads are delegated to the hosting provider, your costs sharply revert to the OPEX cost model, bringing about predictability.
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The long term benefits of converting to the OPEX model cannot be overstated. No more unpredictable CAPEX spikes, a greatly reduced IT management overhead and no more hassle of fighting in-house IT issues, which all serve to detract from the main focus of running your business.
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When joining a community Cloud model there is no initial capital outlay as the hosting provider has already provisioned the infrastructure, meaning you can start realising the benefits of the OPEX model immediately.

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